Thor Halvorssen Hellum (, May 16, 1943 – July 20, 2014) was a Venezuelan-Norwegian businessman who served as CEO and President of the Venezuelan state-owned telephone company, CANTV and later as "special commissioner for international narcotic affairs" in the administration of President Carlos Andrés Pérez. In this post he held the rank of Ambassador. While investigating links to money laundering and drug trafficking, he was imprisoned on charges of terrorism; he was beaten and mistreated in prison, but later found innocent of all charges. Halvorssen's case was taken up by Amnesty International and several other international human rights organizations. The set-up of Halvorssen was reportedly payback for his investigations into presidential corruption, mafia activity, and the money laundering activities of Colombian drug kingpin Pablo Escobar.
Background and career
Halvorssen, of Norwegian descent, is one of the four sons of a Norwegian businessman, Øystein Halvorssen. His father became the president of GMAC (now Ally Financial) in Venezuela before he began his own business operations, and also served as the Norwegian Crown's consul-general in Caracas from 1938. According to the journalist Gaeton Fonzi, who wrote an investigative story about Halvorssen's life, he led the "jet-setting life style" of a "happy-go-lucky" son of a wealthy businessman. With his twin brother Olaf, he befriended Jerry Wolman, the owner of the Philadelphia Eagles football team. The three became partners in real estate transactions and night clubs. Halvorssen graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1966 and completed a Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania MBA in 1969.
After graduating, Halvorssen returned to Caracas to help run the family businesses. Halvorssen’s commercial activities were wide-ranging and included ownership of Venezuelan insurance company AXXA Corretaje de Seguros, and representation of international conglomerates Dunlop, Ericsson, and British Cellophane. Halvorssen was also a real estate developer, owning the company that built the 350-room Melia Caribe hotel.
President Carlos Andres Pérez was elected in 1974 and in 1977 appointed Halvorssen, then 34, president of the Venezuelan state-owned telephone company CANTV; Halvorssen served as president and CEO of CANTV from 1978 until Pérez completed his term. At 36, Halvorssen became involved in community service, working at Venezuela's largest grant-giving charitable foundation, the Dividendo Voluntario Para La Comunidad for six years and serving as its President from 1976–1979. He started a program to build sports facilities in the poorest barrios with a focus on baseball.
In the 1980s Halvorssen focused his financial support for victims of human rights violations in Central America that had been ignored during the proxy wars between the Soviet Union and the United States by co-founding the Caracas-based Romulo Gallegos human rights organization from where he took up the causes of Nicaragua’s Miskito Indians and focused on violations of human rights by Marxist rebel groups throughout Central American and Colombia. Halvorssen participated in the creation and financing of the “alternative human right forums” that began in Geneva in the early 1990s. Halvorssen served on the boards of the Andrei Sakharov Institute and headed the Pan-American committee of the International Society for Human Rights.
When President Pérez was elected President again in 1989, he named Halvorssen Venezuela's "special commissioner for international narcotic affairs" with the rank of ambassador.
After government service Halvorssen lived in Miami where he was an active member of the Venezuelan opposition to the government of Hugo Chávez.
Venezuelan government "drug czar" As chief of anti-narcotics, Halvorssen was behind the extradition to Italy of the Cuntrera-Caruana Mafia clan members Pasquale, Paolo and Gaspare Cuntrera. Gaeton Fonzi, former U.S. Senate investigator, wrote that "the remaining Mafia in Venezuela do not remember Halvorssen fondly for that". Halvorssen worked closely with Manhattan District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau investigating the financial affairs of Venezuelan government officials. Halvorssen discovered the secret bank accounts of Venezuelan president Carlos Andrés Pérez, the man who had appointed Halvorssen. The evidence revealed $19 million that Perez and his mistress, Cecilia Matos, had deposited into numbered accounts. This discovery and the airing of the evidence in Venezuela led to the impeachment of President Perez in May 1993.